Computer systems, such as servers and desktop personal computers, are expected to operate without constant monitoring. These computer systems typically perform various tasks without the user's knowledge. When performing these tasks, the computer system often encounters events that require a particular action (such as logging the event, generating an alert for a particular system or application, or performing an action in response to the event). Various mechanisms are available to handle these events.
A computing enterprise typically includes one or more networks, services, and systems that exchange data and other information with one another. The enterprise may include one or more security mechanisms to safeguard data and authenticate users and may utilize one or more different data transmission protocols. At any particular time, one or more networks, services or systems may be down (e.g., powered down or disconnected from one or more networks). Networks, services or systems can be down for scheduled maintenance, upgrades, overload or failure. Application programs attempting to obtain event data must contend with the various networks, services, and systems in the enterprise when they are down. Additionally, application programs must contend with the security and network topology limitations of the enterprise as well as the various protocols used in the enterprise.
Existing operating system components, services, and applications generate a variety of different events. A set of event-handling policies are typically defined to describe how a particular component, service, or application responds to a particular event. In a computing environment having a large number of components, services, and applications, it may be necessary to define these policies for each of the individual components, services, and applications, even though the same policy may be used with multiple components, services, or applications. This situation results in the repeated entry of similar or identical policy information throughout the computing environment. In a large computing environment, this repeated entry of similar policy information is tedious and requires a significant amount of time by administrators or other personnel. Additionally, each time a new policy is added or an existing policy is modified, the same changes may be required on other components, services, or applications, thereby increasing the burden of modifying policies or adding new policies.
The system and method described herein addresses these limitations by providing a standardized system and method to handle various policies in a computing enterprise.